Tech Digest daily roundup: Twitter ends Covid misinformation policy
Twitter says it has stopped enforcing its policy on misleading information about coronavirus. According to the company’s website, it stopped taking action against tweets breaching its Covid rules, on Wednesday, 23 November. Twitter had previously reported suspending more than 11,000 accounts for Covid misinformation as of September this year. BBC News has approached Twitter for comment. Its other policies on false information remain on Twitter’s website, without a similar notice saying they will no longer be enforced. BBC
Twitter is not safer under its new owner Elon Musk, its former head of trust and safety has said. Yoel Roth, who resigned this month, said the social networking site had started to stray from adhering to publicly available policies towards decisions made by Musk alone. “One of my limits was if Twitter starts being ruled by dictatorial edict rather than by policy… there’s no longer a need for me in my role, doing what I do.” Many of the changes Musk has made have been “sudden and alarming for employees and users alike”, Mr Roth said in a New York Times opinion piece soon after his resignation. Sky News
Researchers have hailed the dawn of a new era of Alzheimer’s therapies after a clinical trial confirmed that a drug slows cognitive decline in patients with early stages of the disease. The result comes after decades of failure in the field and encouraged experts to say Alzheimer’s – which affects 30 million people worldwide – could be treatable. “This is the first drug that provides a real treatment option for Alzheimer patients,” said Bart De Strooper, director of the UK Dementia Research Institute at University College London…The drug, lecanemab, is an antibody therapy that removes clumps of protein called beta amyloid which builds up in the brain. Guardian
Concerns are being raised about the usable lifespan of EVs, with specialist companies reporting some cars reaching ‘end of life’ battery capacity after just eight years – and some hitting that point even sooner. Silver Power Systems (SPS), a specialist in battery performance analysis whose software tracks and monitors battery data and health, says it has observed wide variations in performance, especially within fleets. “Across even a single fleet, variations in battery health can be up to 10%,” said Pete Bishop, founder and chief technology officer at SPS. “Considering that in most commercial applications, 80% battery capacity is deemed to be end of life in operational terms, 10% degradation represents half a vehicle’s life.” Autocar
There’s some bad news for people thinking about buying one of Sky’s streaming-based devices – Sky Glass and Sky Stream. The Ad Skipping add-on, which used to be free for the first 12/18 months – will now cost you from day one. Starting this week, customers who add Ad Skipping to their Sky Glass or Stream, will have to pay £5/month. It’s important to note that existing customers – who already have the Ad Skipping add-on, won’t be affected by this for now – but they will start paying the £5/month once their initial 12/18 months free period is up. Cordbusters
